IoT power measurement and profiling tool now in distribution

March 13, 2018 //
By Nick Flaherty

Swedish test equipment developer Qoitech has signed a worldwide distribution agreement with Digi-Key Electronics for its Otii power measurement tool with software.

Otii provides developers with the means to simplify power measurement of applications and devices, targeting designs in the Internet of Things (IoT) that need long battery life. The system combines the measurement capabilities of several different test and measurement hardware tools into the Otii Arc, a device that makes it substantially easier for developers to pinpoint which sections of code, associated peripherals, and hardware contribute most to the application’s power consumption.

Powered by a PC’s USB port or an external 7.0 – 9.0 V power supply, the Otii Arc provides power to the target application whilst measuring and displaying power consumption from below 1 µA up to 5 A without the need to manually change the settings. As well as measuring power consumption, the Otii Arc, together with the accompanying Otii software, can also monitor additional analogue and digital signals, allowing application subsystems to be monitored in parallel to the main power input. Any serial data, from 9600 bps to 4 Mbps, output by the target can also be synchronously captured and time-stamped.

The Otii software runs on Windows, macOS and Ubuntu Linux and allows the developer to quickly review power consumption from their development PC and share and compare the results easily with colleagues, customers and suppliers. The software significantly increases usability when compared to traditional test and measurement tools that require results be displayed on the tool itself, or require them to be exported for later analysis in a spreadsheet without the test settings and related context of the application.

“Our Otii software package is available via our website, enabling developers to trial the user interface with an example project or review measurements made by colleagues,” said Vanja Samuelsson, Founder of Qoitech. “By combining current measurement, voltage measurement and debug logs output by the target’s serial interface, developers acquire a significantly improved view of their IoT application’s power consumption, allowing them to guarantee a battery life of up to 10